MedCities participated, as member of the Steering Committee of the Mediterranean Commission for Sustainable Development, in the technical workshop “How to monitor the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development 2016-2025 (MSSD) and the Regional Plan on Sustainable Consumption and Production in the Mediterranean (SCP AP)” that took place in Barcelona on 17 October

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These two topics were discussed by the Contracting Parties of the Barcelona Convention during their last COP19 in February 2016 (Athens), and they include requests concerning the monitoring and the measurement of the progress of Sustainable Development (SD) and Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) trends at the regional level.

The workshop gathered Mediterranean countries representatives, nominated by Plan Bleu and the Regional Activity Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP/RAC) focal points, Mediterranean Commission for Sustainable Development (MCSD) members, international experts and MAP representatives.

The overall objective of these activities is to develop a Mediterranean Sustainability dashboard to be adopted by the Barcelona convention COP 20 by the end of 2017.

Therefore the technical workshop had the following objectives:

• To present and discuss a first version of the Mediterranean Sustainability Dashboard
• To present and discuss a first version of the “Blue Economy” dashboard
• To present and receive feedback from the countries on the first draft of set of SCP indicators
• To agree on a first proposal of mandate for the Technical Working Group on SCP indicators

On October 18, took place the first technical meeting of the “Simplified Peer Review Mechanism (SIMPEER) of National Strategies for Sustainable Development“.

The SIMPEER seeks to establish within an agreed methodology the exchange of experiences, polices and good practices on implementing sustainable development at national level, as opposed to creating a scrutiny framework between reviewers and countries under examination.

UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention Coordinating Unit supported by its Plan Bleu Regional Activity Centre (PB/RAC) has launched a consultation process to test a pilot on such simplified peer review mechanism, volunteer contracting parties (Morocco and Montenegro) were identified and involved.

The mechanism will contribute to the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development 2016-2025 (MSSD 2016-2025) implementation and monitoring.

For more information of the event …